Terri White
Thirty years ago, veteran actor/singer Terri White was blacklisted from Broadway for being a lesbian. Though she had appeared in numerous productions, including Nunsense, Ain’t Misbehavin,’ Barnum and Welcome to the Club in the 1970s and 1980s, White withdrew from the theatre, frustrated by the lack of roles. She eventually became homeless, living in Washington Square Park. In 2008, an NYPD officer recognized her and helped her to find a place to live, the first step in her professional rebirth. The following year, White was cast in the Broadway revivals of Finian’s Rainbow, Chicago, and most recently Follies–and finally exited the closet on the insistence of her now-wife. She found attitudes toward LGBT people had changed for the better. “[Producer] Myla Lerner made it possible for me to legally marry my fiancée, Donna Barnett, on the stage of the same theatre that I was blacklisted from more than 30 years ago,” White recalls. “After every performance of Follies, someone at the stage door would either congratulate us on our wedding or thank us for what we have done for the gay community. Hearing that makes me realize that I have done something important, not just for me, but for us all.”
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